Existential Crisis: The Crucial Leadership Experiment
“Suba, off-late, I feel tired quickly. Am I losing my energy? Am I aging quickly? I want to go super speed for another seven years, at least. As you know, I have one more kid ready to go abroad to study. I need money. Then, I will slow down and do more ONLY for my inner satisfaction keeping the rest aside.” the client said with a smile.
This client is 50 years old and a Senior VP in the Leather Goods Industry. A high performer from his early career days, he is seen as a leader passionate about elevating his teams’ lives to a higher space. He is a very dedicated employee who has contributed much to the organizations he has worked for all these three decades. We have been co-creating many solutions for the past few months.
“I would like to delve deeper into understanding my energy levels in this session, Suba. I do not want to feel tired. I do not want to step down or slow down this soon. This is high time I re-energize and leverage it to the fullest.”
This is what happens after spending hours in deeper coaching conversations. After a few weeks, these leaders, my clients, become fully self-aware and come up with much clarity regarding the goals or the problem statements for each session.
So, why are we talking about energy today? What is its connection with Leadership?
Take a few moments, gather yourself, and keenly focus on what is written ahead.
Leaders today are sandwiched; there is a board, VCs, shareholders, and investors at one end – a bread slice at the top. The teams, employees, vendors, and partners are at the other end – the bottom slice. The pressure from both slices, along with sauces and ketch-up like time, risk, quality, audit, etc., lead to overheating and burnout.
The fire that heats the sandwich here is the business world’s critical uncertainty.
Such uncertainty leads to creating a typical business story – a growth strategy. The organizations feel comfortable with the strategy because it gives them a safe space.
Next, leaders start playing different roles as a part of that story and work towards achieving the vision and goal setting as a part of the strategy. Such stories come with a defined start and end.
Let’s now understand Existential Crisis.
As long as everything goes along with the script, the challenges are well managed by all the characters.
But what happens in case of a mishap like the Pandemic we witnessed? Yes, we are still fighting the odds as to its impact.
Each of us reading this newsletter has seen the reality of a significant crisis and what sort of greater impact it can create on businesses. Moreover, we have keenly observed the role of various leaders worldwide.
If not already, retake a few moments, think of a leader you admire, and reflect on their actions for the past few months, the Pandemic.
Beyond creating stories and scripts to manage uncertainties, the characters need special attention and more profound interventions to handle the existential crisis.
领英推荐
Few observations
They make tough decisions; laying off people because of the Pandemic is not easy. I know many leaders have had many, many, and many sleepless nights. ?
They have no other choice instead prioritize teams over their personal life; I have seen leaders having panic attacks looking at the Covid data after losing several employees and their families to death.
They have issues understanding, interpreting, and evaluating populated, complex data. Even a slight mistake here could negatively impact millions of lives.
Some Quick Bites on the Energy-Saving Part
Everything starts with the Behaviour: Recognize the energy-exhausting behavior. Merely expecting the teams to perform well without training them in the necessary skills will not help. Check out what takes your energy the most and see what needs to be done.
Observe than an act: Finding faster solutions for all the problems is unnecessary. The main reason for many workplace conflicts is to hurrying and executing than planning.
Be Realistic: Unrealistic targets and aggressive Leadership go hand in hand. They bring in short-time and quick gains but a major disaster in the long run. CBI insights quote that a company named Nice Tuan went into disaster mode because fake buyers appeared every month to meet sales targets. How are you defining and achieving the targets? Look at it.
Prioritizing the crisis: Attrition is a crisis; answering to the shareholder is a crisis; improving the product/service is a crisis.
Anything and everything can become a crisis at different stages.
Where should you invest your energy? Again, prioritizing the crisis is critical here.
So, now let me ask you a question.
What is the connection between energy and existential crisis?
I leave you to reflect on the question.
To enhance your leadership growth journey and engage in your Executive?#teamengagement ?programs, write to me: at [email protected].
Subscribe to our Bi-Weekly Newsletter. More stories, intriguing experiences along with learnings are coming up.
Do you want me to cover any specific leadership challenges in our newsletter? Do let me know.